So many times we have great plans for those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, but things just don’t work out. All the time we thought we would have slips away, and we find ourselves at the end of the season and realize that maybe we didn’t do as much as we thought we would.
I know that many of you are making those to-do lists with your families right now, and so I have five things you might want to consider adding to your lists. The nice thing about this to-do list is that everything is fun. Not one chore is listed. Woo-hoo!!!
1. Go shopping in a farm store – Last year my brother and I went browsing in a farm store, and I found some adorable things to use in a summer vignette for our kitchen table. Use your imaginations, and you might come up with a cute vignette on your own. A farm store is a real learning experience for a child who hasn’t visited a working farm before. There are lots of things there to learn about. It’s like a mini school lesson, and they won’t even realize it.
2. Pick berries and make jam. – If you have kids, I bet they would love to go to a berry farm and pick blackberries, blueberries, or strawberries. Then together you can make some jam to have for now and then can some to have on a cold winter school morning. Don’t be scared by this one. I had never made jam until I followed this recipe and made blackberry jam just a few months ago.
3. Go on a bicycle picnic. – Fill a backpack with a picnic lunch and ride your bicycles to a great spot for a summer picnic. Maybe you have a bicycle trail in your area that you haven’t been to or maybe it’s a park or nature area. Here in Lexington, we have a nature area called McConnell’s Springs, which was the exact spot where Lexington was founded. There are nature trails and exhibits that adults and kids love. I often will take a small lunch and cycle to one of the many horse farms here and just eat while watching the horses graze in the fields. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon. Be sure to wear your helmets.
4. Host a “movie on the lawn” party. Jordan and Yankee have had three of these parties in their back yard at the end of summer. Pick a movie that will appeal to both kids and adults, make theme-related invitations, and serve snacks that go along with the movie’s theme. You can learn how to do it here here, and here.
5. Make ice cream the old-fashioned way. Maybe I’m dating myself here, but when I was little, if we wanted homemade ice cream, we had to work for it as in turning the crank to make the sweetly flavored cream turn into real ice cream. What a miracle that was!!! I know it would be much easier to just add ingredients to a little ice cream churn and plug it in, but teaching the kids how to work for this delicious reward is sooooo worth it. If you just don’t happen to own a manual ice cream maker, you can buy one here. The nice thing about this churn is that it is both manual and electric. In other words, if you get tired, just plug it in.
